Newsworthy Founder: Confidence in front of the Camera, Client Relations + Golden Lattes with Praise Santos

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Today’s Newsworthy Founder is Praise Santos, the founder behind the photography studio ComePlum and fellow lover of puns, pretty things and people. Praise lives in San Francisco, California, where she does silly dances to loosen up female entrepreneurs during their personal brand photoshoots, builds her Google map locations of colors around the city to create eye-catching content for brands such as Lululemon and Adidas, and leads workshops for organizations such as The Golden State Warriors and BEI Hotel. Her photos have been featured in Vogue, Forbes, TechCrunch and the San Francisco Chronicle, and her project Ethical Weddings won a 20 On The Rise award by the 60,000+ member Rising Tide Society. In today’s episode, Praise and I talk about how to be confident and ditch the squirrel hands on camera (confidence in front of the camera), how to be your own Instagram husband, a powerful revenue source in PR often overlooked, and much more. Praise teaches me about a new beverage that in her words is a warm hug in your belly, and she walks us through an impromptu live confident exercise.

Highlights:

• Praise’s photography studio ComePlum specializes in capturing go-getter women who are impacting the world.

• Photos matter: a good photo generates engagement. In order to achieve a successful photo, Praise wants to get to know the brand or person behind the photoshoot. She then uses her resources and the camera to tell their unique story.

• Praise recommends taking different types of photos, with different styles and formats. She also suggests creating templates and media kits that you can send every time someone asks for information about your brand. She tells us what photos we should look to capture in our next session.

• If you can’t hire a photographer (although it is highly recommended), learn to DIY. Praise has an e-book with tips and explanations to help you take a good photo. She answers all the questions clients have asked her throughout the years, including what to do with your hands.

• As a photographer, Praise works to help her clients feel confident in front of the camera. Having worked with everyday people and supermodels, she knows that everyone feels insecure about something, and that’s normal. She leads us through a few exercises to feel confident in front of the camera.

• What is your aesthetic? For Praise, to find your aesthetic you have to think about your brand and your values, define your audience, and what you want them to feel when they see your pictures.

• Customer experience is key! Most of her clients have referred her to new ones. Praise discovered that cultivating a positive customer experience is more important than the talent of the photographer. A good client relationship will bring more clients and make the old ones come back to you.